This invention relates to washer dryers.
Washer dryers typically comprise a rotatable drum for receiving a load to be washed, inside a non-rotatable tub. When the washing part of the washing/drying cycle has been completed, moist air is repeatedly drawn from the drum in a closed recirculation path, passed through a condensing region to remove some of the moisture, heated and returned to the drum.
It has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,792,640 and in German Patent No. 196 15 823 to provide a condenser disc on the rear of the drum, spraying water onto the condenser disc to promote the condensation of moisture out of the re-cycled air from the drum.
However, in recent years, it has been usual to provide a molding to define the condensing region, constructed as a hollow arm arranged vertically, which communicates at one end with an outlet of the tub and at the other end with an inlet to a box containing a heating element. Water is trickled down the hollow arm while the moist air flows up it. Such an arrangement was adopted because it was felt that the relatively restricted cross-sectional area of the arm promoted heat transfer between the moist air and the water.
A problem with such an arrangement has however been fluff and fibres (lint) carried out of the drying clothes in the stream of moist air became deposited inside the hollow arm. A separate water jet therefore had to be provided to clear any build-ups of lint, and this was done during the wash cycle, but it was not totally successful. Lint could still block to such an extent that drying performance was impaired necessitating the summoning of a service engineer.